CHARLOTTE – Duke Power begins its third day of power restoration efforts for the worst outage situation in the company’s history. More than 1.3 million customers were without power during the height of the outage on Thursday, Dec. 5. As of early Saturday morning, service had been restored to approximately 500,000 customers.

“This storm has been hard on customers, and hard on our employees,” said E. O. Ferrell, senior vice president of electric distribution for Duke Power. “ Our employees – many of whom are also without power – have been working around the clock to answer customer calls, coordinate efforts with governmental and other service agencies, organize and dispatch crews, as well as take care of the critical hands-on efforts needed to remove trees from lines, replace poles and other equipment and repair downed lines.

“We made good progress the last two days, and we know the work that lies ahead will be extensive,” Ferrell said. “More favorable weather conditions over the weekend should help our restoration efforts. We continue to urge customers to be patient and to use extreme caution around fallen power lines.”

Approximately 10,000 Duke Power employees, contractors and neighboring crews are dedicated to the restoration efforts. The company projects that 90 percent of the outages will be restored by Wednesday evening, Dec. 11.

Power outages and downed power lines should be reported using the 1-800-POWERON (1/800-769-3766) telephone line. If a customer has reported an outage, it isn’t necessary to call again unless the customer’s power remains off when a neighbor’s power is restored.

Major areas affected as of6 a.m.:

North Carolina

South Carolina

Location

Number

Location

Number

Burlington

48,800

Anderson

2,700

Chapel Hill

33,200

Chester

980

Charlotte

202,300

Clemson

CLEAR

Durham

93,300

Greenville

43,900

Gastonia

54,000

Greenwood

1,000

Greensboro

64,700

Greer

13,800

Hendersonville

CLEAR

Lancaster

19,300

Hickory

43,200

Spartanburg

49,000

High Point

43,200

Kannapolis

25,300

Lenoir

4,100

Marion

2,000

Mooresville

21,700

North Wilkesboro

6,100

Rutherfordton

7,400

Salisbury

42,000

Shelby

19,000

Winston-Salem

9,400

SATURDAY, DEC. 7, WE WILL PROVIDE UPDATES ON OUR MEDIA OUTAGE UPDATE LINE AT 704/382-8333 ON THE FOLLOWING SCHEDULE:

6:30 a.m.

11 a.m.

4:30 p.m.

9:30 p.m.

PLEASE PRESS OPTION 1. THIS OPTION WILL ALSO ALLOW YOU TO REACH A REPRESENTATIVE FOR INTERVIEW.

Duke Power, a business unit of Duke Energy, is one of the nation’s largest electric utilities and provides safe, reliable, competitively priced electricity to approximately two million customers inNorth CarolinaandSouth Carolina. Duke Power operates three nuclear generating stations, eight coal-fired stations, 31 hydroelectric stations and numerous combustion turbine units. Total system generating capability is approximately 19,300 megawatts. More information about Duke Power is available on the Internet at: www.dukepower.com.

Duke Energy is a diversified multinational energy company with an integrated network of energy assets and expertise. The company manages a dynamic portfolio of natural gas and electric supply, delivery and trading businesses – meeting the energy needs of customers throughoutNorth Americaand in key markets around the world. Duke Energy, headquartered inCharlotte,N.C., is a Fortune 500 company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DUK. More information about the company is available on the Internet at:www.duke-energy.com.